Academic Article - Operant Conditioning In Behavior Change And Its Examples In Daily Life Academic Article

Operant Conditioning In Behavior Change And Its Examples In Daily Life

Yeditepe University Pyschology Department

Gurur Erdiren

Psychology Department

Yeditepe University

     

     Operant conditioning is the type of learning which a behavior’s likelihood to occur is determined by reinforcement or discourage of that behavior. The desired behavior is tried to be encouraged by reinforcements, which provides a desirable situation to the learning organism. For example, if a behavior brings reward or removes an undesirable situation, that behavior is likely to be repeated by that organism. Likewise, a behavior which causes harm or loss is likely to be shown less and less. So, the frequency of the behavior is determined by its returns.

     

     These principles can have critical importance in educational system and McAllister, Stachowiak, Baer and Conderman questioned whether those principles may be used to shape children’s behavior (1969). Their research was about making children’s negative behavior fade by using operant conditioning techniques. They made an experiment on elementary and secondary school students and investigated the place of operant conditioning in teacher-student relationship.

     

     They made this experiment on 25 students and with assistance of a teacher who were education for the experiment. The behaviors which are to be decreased were talking without permission and turning around while sitting. There are three experimental conditions. One of them is the control group which teacher does not do any special things toward the unwanted behaviors. In the second condition, the teacher showed disapproval for inappropriate talking, praised the silence and avoid punishing. He or she expressed the content in case of silence and disappointment in failing to remain silent. The third condition includes inappropriate turning and teacher made the same thing in the second condition for the turning behavior. At the end of the experiment, the talking behavior highly reduced in experimental group in comparison with the control group (McAllister et. al, 1969). McAllister et. al. found the same result also for the second experimental group, which seeks to reduce the turning behavior (1969). The turning behavior had significantly increased with the companionship of the teacher’s reinforcements. As a result, McAllister et. al.’s research showed that the principles of operational conditioning can be used in education by a teacher and it would be really effective (1969). It is also noted that the reduction in unwanted behaviors may be due to getting the disapproval individually; in other words, being warned as an individual target may shock the student and this shock may be more effective than getting praise as a group (McAllister, 1969). McAllister and his colleagues found this situation similar to the response that animals give in a suddenly changed situation (1969); and the sudden change in this case is being an attention object. Although the results can be interpreted as the student behaviors can be shaped by operant conditioning, McAllister et. al. considered the possibility that the changes may have become not due to learning but due to perceiving them as instructions or orders (1969). In short, operant conditioning which is a learning principle being determined by the consequences can be applied in education system effectively.

    

     Its reflections in our daily lives are abundant. Many of our behaviors were highly shaped by our teachers’ attitudes towards us. We can easily observe that students are reluctant to ask permission to talk. It is a clear result of being insulted when an original idea was expressed. Most of students have learned that if they express their own ideas, they would be kidded, their opinions will not be taken seriously and they will feel like a fool. The teachers must have tried to ensure silence by punishing them with underestimating and insulting them, which is an example of operant conditioning. It is sad that they did it not by praising as it is done in the paper, but they did it by punishing and students associate talking with being insulted, because the consequence was this.

     

     Another example is that grades are found more important than actually learning. It is because the fastest result is obtained this way. The grades give the quickest and the most effective reward which can be a good job or higher chance of acceptance to graduate programs.

     

     These were the negative aspects of operant condition in education in Turkey. However, there are also positive examples. For example, an idealist teacher may encourage his or her students to be more creative and praise them can cause his or her students to be more willing to do creative jobs. When students realize that their creativity and originality is liked and the result is praise, they are expected to act more freely in their jobs.

     

     In nursery schools, some notions such as sharing, respect to each other, kindness etc. are taught by praising and disapproving. This can be another example.

     

     Although the usage of operant conditioning on students is a highly rich subject, operant conditioning itself has many other rich aspects. Yet, this study includes the basic principles of operant conditioning and shows a fine example of how it is applied to our real life settings.

References:

McAllister, L. W., Stachowiak, J. G., Baer, D. M., & Conderman, L. (1969). The Application Of Operant Conditioning Techniques In A Secondary School Classroom. Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis,2(4), 277-285.